Source: Office of United States Attorneys
Gabriel Estrada, 30, of Denver, Colorado, was sentenced to 120 months, with five years of supervised release to follow, for attempting to entice a minor to engage in illegal sexual activity. U.S. District Court Judge Alan B. Johnson imposed the sentence in Cheyenne on Jan. 13.
A federal jury convicted Estrada on Oct. 25, 2024. According to trial evidence and court documents, Estrada used a chat website to meet up with a 13-year-old persona for sexual intercourse. An undercover agent posed as a 13-year-old female living in Laramie, Wyoming. Estrada messaged the 13-year-old persona asking if she would have sex with him. He went on to ask the 13-year-old persona if she had a friend who would like to join them in the sexual encounter and asked about her sexual experience. Estrada then drove the two hours from his home to Laramie after confirming the person he believed to be a 13-year-old girl would engage in sexual acts with him. Estrada arrived in Laramie and was arrested by police officers, who seized Estrada’s iPhone containing text messages to the 13-year-old persona. Estrada also had two condoms.
“The Internet can be a dangerous place for our children because of people like this defendant, a fully grown man who wanted to have sex with a 13-year-old girl and did everything he could to make that happen,” said United States Attorney Eric Heimann. “The United States Attorney’s Office will continue to support proactive law enforcement actions aimed at identifying and arresting individuals who are ready, willing, and eager to sexually abuse children.”
The Laramie Police Department and the FBI investigated the crime and Assistant U.S. Attorney Z. Seth Griswold prosecuted the case.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims.
Case No. CR-24-00033